The Strawberry Duck
by Lost Duck
Summary: Impulsive, first-person writing.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**_ This is what I like to refer to as impulse writing. Its where I write on a whim without revising, so there will be grammatical error. Each part will be written in a different point of view; Katie, Hayden, Michael or Randy. This is not 'fanfiction', as it is meant to be to be on this site. Even so, please read & review at your leisure. I would greatly appreciate it. Thank you. :_

**Katie's POV**

There was a stillness to the air so unlike what I was used to as I made my way down the cobbled alley.

There was a stillness to the air so unlike what I was used to as I made my way down the cobbled alley. The only light available was coming from a dimly lit street lamp giving off a dull hum and flickering every now and then as insects partied around it. As unwelcoming as it seemed, especially as it bathed hoards of winged demons in warm light, it was like a beacon of hope in the distance, and I was determined to reach it.

I could feel warmth rolling down my right arm and over my left hand, which was grasping the offending wound as tightly as it could in an effort to stop the flow of blood. The pain radiating from that one point on my body was completely crippling me, so that even my feet were having trouble in keeping a steady pace. My head was throbbing but the migraine felt minimal in comparison to the way my right hand currently felt. Maybe it wasn't the worst agony I could have felt, but it seemed so at the time.

When I stumbled out of the shadow of the alleyway and into the stale light of the street, I had to blink several times to focus my blurring vision. I could see, as well as hear, my breath leaving my parted lips in staggering white puffs. Was it cold? I couldn't feel anything beyond the pain of my arm, which seemed to make my blood run hot in my veins. My only thought was repetitive and determined: _Get to the Strawberry Duck._

Something told me that if I could just reach the dilapidated wooden doors of that London pub, I would find some sense of security again. It didn't matter to me how anyone might react when they saw me. All that mattered was that I was hurt and needed to be with someone familiar. I felt frustration at the deserted street as I continued on; wasn't London meant to be some busy hotspot? I felt betrayed by all of my prior expectations of this dream world.

I pushed my left shoulder against the door of the pub, hoping that it might be open so that I could just...fall through. No such luck. I wasn't surprised--this wasn't exactly my lucky day, after all. I rested there for a moment, winded from fear more than exertion. I could hear the muffled banter of people on the other side of the door as my head fell against it, just out of my reach.

"_Help me._"

While I had clearly meant it to be a cry, it only escaped as a broken whisper. My throat felt dry, hindering my ability to speak for the moment, which was hardly helpful to the situation. I don't know how long I remained that way, helplessly propped up against the door, silently begging for someone to find me. All I know is that the blood was dripping slowly from the tip of my middle finger, rolling down the peeling green paint of the door and finally gathering on the cement just beside my foot.

_He'll find me. I'll be okay, it's just a cut and he'll find me and fix it._

I was comforting myself with these thoughts when the door I was using as a prop burst outward, throwing me back forcefully and sending me sprawling on the harsh cement. Now I could feel the cold. It was spreading from the tips of my toes and making a steady journey upwards, and while the offending couple's laughter died and they took in my appearance, I couldn't move. I was paralyzed to the place, perhaps because I was afraid that they might pass me by. I wanted to be seen, even while looking like the unholy mess that I was. I wanted to be saved.

"Shit, are you okay?"

He was leaning over me with this intense furrow to his brow, his eyes not showing compassion but intrigue. This wasn't my savior, but perhaps he could take me there. I opened my mouth, desperate for the strength to simply speak and yet nothing would come to me. He reached out to touch my wound and I cringed so prematurely he never reached his goal and instead retracted his touch. His girlfriend or, to be more accurate, the girl he was taking home, was looking skittish. I could almost feel her discomfort as she hugged herself, her eyes darting up and down the street.

"Let's just get out of here, James." Her voice was uneasy, like she'd done something wrong and was feeling certain that someone was about to find out about it. "Please, I just wanna go."

"_Help._"

My lips moved. That was at least a start, right? James shook his head at me, looking back to the woman before pushing to his feet once more. I knew at that moment, hope was lost. He wasn't any kind of hero. All he wanted to save tonight was a pair of that girl's panties to prove that he'd scored her to his mates. The click of her heels on the pavement died away a few moments later and the silence returned along with the despair.

I lay there, slightly curled and cradling my injured arm like a baby; moving it hurt so badly that it blinded me. I dared to move my foot once and came inches from allowing darkness to swallow me whole. How could something hurt this much? It was just my arm. I shouldn't feel this ill. My legs should have been fine, and yet I couldn't stand. Something was so wrong with me, I was afraid to explore the options. I watched far too much television, and I would have come up with something far worse than what it probably was.

By this point, I was shivering so badly that my teeth were chattering. If someone else didn't exit the pub soon, I would certainly have to start considering the benefits of welcoming unconsciousness. The only thing saving me from completely blacking out was the paranoia of being found by the wrong person. God knew I couldn't take much more agony. Not tonight, anyway.

_Open. Open up, you fucking door. Fucking OPEN!_

I growled. The world was failing me! I couldn't understand why no one was coming out or why no one was on the street. Nothing made sense and everything felt thick and strained, including the blood drying on my goose-pimpled arm. How much longer my sanity would last, I didn't know. It was probably already gone and I was too f-cking insane to recognize its absence.

"_Please_," I managed a whisper for the first time in what felt like ages, "_just open_."

And it did.

"Fuck."

My eyes were closed but I smiled. It was him, and I could relax now. I just barely felt his arms around me, gently lifting me into safety, before everything went black at last. There was a security in his arms that, even when broken and confused, offered me peace enough to forget the pain and simply sleep.

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	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Note: **_Every part of this story is done in the first-person perspective. There will be four different perspective explored throughout this story. There will not be a pattern to the perspectives, but I will specify whose POV is being explored at the beginning of every chapter. Please read and review! _

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_Hayden's POV _

The Strawberry Duck; Part Two

I practically lived here, which I suppose isn't really something I should be proud of now that I look around me. There were words and shapes carved roughly into the tops of the scrubbed wooden tables and all along the curvature of the bar top; among them my own name was repeated several times, with thanks to the tip of my switchblade. It was always a riot in the Strawberry Duck, and I think that was why I felt so at home there.

One thing I could always count on was a good, clean fight. I admit it, I have a pretty sharp tongue and manage to rile up the most patient of men if I have a mind to, and nothing puts me in a right good mood like making some lairy bloke bleed. My missus gets proper stressed about me fighting so much, but I'm a fighter; its what I know and its how I live and she knows that. I think she kind of likes it, too.

Tonight, the pub was packed with the usual riffraff. Liverpool was in a match against Manchester United and whoever wasn't crowded about the tellie getting riled up over bad calls was sharking on the snooker tables. I can't see a snooker cue without grinning, because everytime I try to tell my American bird about snooker, she calls cues _sticks_. I've given up correcting her on some things, though, and I'll never admit to her that I think its right cute when she does things like that. Mostly because I don't say 'cute'.

I knew most of the people well good, but there would always be that handful of newcomers boozing it up at the bar and picking up girls for a good time. That wasn't me, and it hadn't been for a long time now. My mates still took the piss out of me, but they were finally figuring out that I wasn't changing my mind. I'd wait a thousand years for that girl and never think of anyone else, and their taking a piss wouldn't make me do anything to lose her.

"Oi, did you see that, mate?" Craig was out of his seat, voice raised above the racket and his finger wagging at the screen. "Gerrard just bloody made a hect goal, mate! That was WELL good, that was!"

Of course, I'd seen it. I was on my feet, too, and you better believe I was quick to address that son of a bitch to my right, a Man U fan, who'd been mouthing off the whole match. I could be a right mouthy bastard sometimes, and I rarely let some bloke get away with big-headedness around me. No sir.

"Shut yer gaf, you ruddy wanker." He growled at me, and judging by the glassy hue of his eyes, he was three sheets to the wind already. Me and my mates had a laugh at him as he stumbled off of his stool in an attempt to stand up to me. I had him by a good four or five inches, easy, and he had to look up to glare at me. He thought he was a hard man, but I wasn't intimidated. Nothing scared me. I knew when I was beat, and now wasn't it.

"Whatchu gonna do 'bout it, y'mug?" I challenged, and yeah I was hoping he'd have a go at me. When your girl was in a different country, you had to get your fixes in different ways. Fighting was my adrenaline rush. God, I loved it.

And then he was tossing his drink all over me, the cider in his mug splashing into my face and dripping down onto my blue button-up shirt. Before the liquid even seeped into my skin, I reacted and the pub became more alive than ever as his mates and mine jumped into the rumble. It was a rare thing that anyone could get a punch in on me and before the man could think to swing, I had punched him straight in the side of his head. He stumbled back into the bar, gripped it and tried to stabilize but I hit him again, this time in the ribs. Not once, but twice and then three times when he tried to swipe at me.

I don't know who was hitting who around me, but the minute my man was down, I swung around to rescue my brother from one of the other bloke's mates. Lewis was never much of a fighter and even though he could be a right pain in the arse, he was my brother and I'd die before I left him to fend for himself against a bloke twice his size.

"Hayden, fuck off outta here!" Kevin, the owner of the pub, was a good mate of mine but sometimes he got a bit stressed when I fought in his place. He always made me come and fix all the shit I'd broken afterwards, but I didn't mind. A mate was a mate in London. Even so, my temper was good and hot, no one was exempt. Well, almost no one.

"What the fuck you on about?" I shouted above the riot, "He started it, why do I have to go?"

"Mostly because he can't walk!" Kevin pointed out, thrusting a thumb at the invalid. He was short and old enough to be my dad, but Kevin was a hard man. You had to respect him because he demanded it, and he knew all the people you wanted to avoid pissing off. So, I called him a bunch of things I knew he wasn't because I was drunk and fuming, the blood in my veins still hot.

"Alright, you lot, fuck off outta here! I'm callin' the cops!" I heard Kevin shout at my mates and the spicks we were fighting as I stomped toward the door. If I didn't think they'd disentangle at that threat, I would have stayed and made sure my brother got away unscathed. Kevin would take care of him, though.

I kicked the door open, which pissed Kevin off on a normal day because it was already shot to sh-t from abuse, and stumbled out. I was steady enough, though, once the cold air hit me and I was reminded of my damp shirt and chest. My vision blurred for a split second, making me blink at the small mound of human on the pavement right outside the pub door.

"Fuck."

My heart both stopped beating altogether and started racing in a matter of two seconds, my blood going from boiling to ice cold so fast it made me dizzy. If I'd been buzzed before, I was zapped plumb sober by the sight of her, laying there in her own blood and looking too weak to mumble. I'd had nightmares about seeing her this way, but never once believed that I would have to. I had always known that I would protect her when I went there, so that he couldn't touch her anymore.

But I wasn't there. She was here, and I just couldn't wrap my mind around that right now. All I could do was kneel down and pull her as gently as I could into my own arms before lifting to my feet with a slight strain in my muscles. She was dead weight, but I was too numb to register whether she was heavy or not. All I knew was that I was holding my baby for the first time and she wasn't even conscious.

"I got you, duck, you're alright now." I muttered, but I knew she couldn't hear me. It didn't matter. I shrugged so that her head bumped lightly against my shoulder and then started to walk. You just don't drive in London if you don't need to, and I had a bit of a walk ahead of me to reach home. It was cold, and I could feel my trousers sliding a bit. She always told me to wear a belt but this was the only time I even considered it.

By the time I reached my flat on the south side, she was trembling in my hold and my fingers were numb as I tried to keep a grip on her. I kept my eyes straight ahead of me, not wanting to look at where the blood was coming from just yet. All I could think of the entire walk home was that she smelled so sweet, and that all I wanted to do was kiss her. God, I had wanted to kiss that girl for so long.

"Mike!"

I shouted as I kicked the door, because obviously I couldn't reach the keys in my trouser pocket. All I got in response was, well, nothing. I was aggitated, because I needed to take care of my bird and my best mate was missing in action, leaving us out in the cold like a right wanker.

"MIKE, MATE! OPEN THE DOOR, YA LOUSY FUCK!"

This time I could hear movement and, finally, the lock on the door slid and he flung it open with an awful vengence, glaring ice daggers at me for disturbing him.

"S'matter, you fuckin' prick, ain't you got a key?" He shouted, but before he was even done with his sentence, his eyes fell to my armful and he was moving aside to let me in.


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's Note:**_ Meet your newest character! Special thank you to Betchya for her support! _

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**Michael's POV**

I woke with a start, sitting straight up and opening my eyes as widely as I could with my heart pounding in my chest. I didn't remember falling to sleep, and I wasn't sure what had woken me. The room was illuminated only by the flicker of the television screen in front of the coffee table. I don't know why we had a coffee table; neither of us drank coffee. It was mostly just another available surface to stack shit, like our xbox controllers and old newspapers. Hayden liked to do the crossword puzzles in newspapers. He was weird that way.

Rubbing a hand through my hair, I turned and placed my feet on the cold, wooden floor. I must have dropped off while playing Halo 3, because I definitely hadn't meant to stay in that night. Standing, I stretched the kinks out of my back with a groan before stooping slightly to turn off the set. I really shouldn't have done that, because I now only had the light of Charlie's yellow eyes to guide me over to the lamp.

It was only about five or six feet to the lamp, which Hayden and I had rescued from a pile of rubbish, but I managed to stumble over a shoe, run into the corner of the sofa and slide on a piece of paper before reaching it. Cursing under my breath, I flicked the switch in aggravation and flooded the small front room with dim light. My gaze fell on Charlie's fluffy white tail, which twitched as he stared at me lazily.

"What?"

The persian cat merely closed his eyes halfway at my demand. We'd had him here for less than a month, and already the damn thing thought it owned the joint. Neither of us like animals, but not even I could say no when I heard her crying hysterically down the phone at me. To us, it was a dumb animal; to her, though, it must have meant a lot more. Girls are crazy that way; they get all attached to things that can't even talk.

Our flat was nice, for what it was, but all of our furniture was stolen, borrowed or broken. The sofa, which was my personal favourite, had been found at a second-hand shop up in Manchester and Hayden swore it was the only thing good that ever came out of that city. The recliner didn't match at all, but we didn't really put much stock in matching furniture so it didn't bother us that one was black and the other was brown. It did sort of bother us that when we reclined in it, the entire chair fell over backwards, though. The walls were bare, which kind of made it feel even colder than it was.

Charlie flopped over, sprawling himself across the top of the television and I didn't feel entirely alone.

If I had thought the wooden floor was cold, the kitchen floor was ice. It was some God-awful yellow and white linoleum, stained and scuffed up so badly that it could have been tan. There was no table, just two counter tops covered in dirty dishes and opened packages of food. We were slobs, kind of, but we pretended to care when someone didn't clean up after themselves. I should tell the truth, sometimes Hayden really does have a fit and wash the dishes. Sometimes.

My feet were frozen, sending shivers all the way up my legs as I crossed to the refrigerator and pulled it open. There wasn't much of a selection, but you would always find Strongbow and Bud in there. Always. I cracked open a can of Strongbow and took a long swig, then wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. I could hear Winters shouting his head off next door, as well as the whir of traffic on the street beyond the front door.

I felt weird.

You know, like when you wake up alone in a dark house and you don't know what time it is or where anyone has gone. Heavy, restless and a little pissed off about it. I was going to get Hayden back for not waking me up and telling me he was going out; he knew I would have wanted to come. Instead, I slammed the refrigerator door and headed out of the kitchen.

The front door was in the front room, which was a given if you think about it, and the back door was in the kitchen. A small bathroom was right off of the front room and then a staircase started up steeply right inside the front door. I took those creaking, poorly carpeted stairs two at a time, taking a left at the top into the first door. My room was pitch black, but I turned the light on before attempting to enter it completely. You couldn't see the floor for all of my junk; clothes, CDs, DVDs, rubbish in general. The bed was unmade and the drawers to my wardrobe were all open and throwing up items at me.

I heard a bang downstairs and assumed it was Hayden getting in, so I grabbed some socks--one gray and one blue--and yanked them onto my feet. My hair kept falling into my eyes, so I kept blowing them out of my face as I hopped about, jamming on socks. I probably looked like a dickhead, but no one was there to see it so I wasn't much bothered.

There was a shout and I paused, looking up for a moment before stabilizing myself and heading down the stairs again. Hayden was shouting his f-cking head off outside the door, acting like a real bastard. He had a key, but he was probably too wrecked to realize it or something. By the time I reached the door and was unlocking it, I was fuming at him for some reason.

"S'matter, you fuckin' prick, ain't you got a key?"

As soon as I laid eyes on him, though, I stepped back to let him in. He wasn't drunk; no, there was something new in his dark blue eyes that I'd never seen before and it was a little scary. My gaze fell to the girl in his arms as he passed through, and the blood dripping from her shivering form.

"Holy fuck." I mumbled, shutting and locking the door quickly, just in case he was being followed by whoever had done this to her. Who knew, maybe he'd done it and the cops were after him. I wanted to strangle him to death, I really did.

The girl gave a soft whimper as Hayden stooped to put her on the sofa. I opened my mouth to protest his decision, because I didn't want blood on it, but nothing came out. Her head dropped to the cushion and I got my first good look at her face--pale, a little dirty but very familiar. I'd seen her picture a thousand times before.

"Is that--"

"Yeah. Fuckin' hell." Hayden cut me off, rubbing his hands through his hair and down his face roughly, like he thought it would shake some intelligence into him. He wasn't one to lose his cool, but he'd lost it. I'd never seen him so out of sorts, so I moved over to the sofa and took a look at her arm. He reacted at first, like he was going to shove me away or something, but didn't.

I couldn't get a good look at it with the bloody shirt sleeve in my way, so I started to unbutton it. It was only then that Hayden knocked my hand away a bit too harshly for my liking. Shooting him a warning glare, I gestured to her.

"You do it, then."

And he did. He unbuttoned the shirt, then slid his hand under her back to lift her and held her against him so he could gently remove it. When he rested her back down, I saw that she still had on a white wifebeater so at least I didn't have to feel awkward for looking at his bird. That was more of a relief than it should have been right then, but I guess I was just focusing on anything but what was going on.

"Call someone."

I don't know why I said it, but I knew asking him why she was here or how this had happened would have been pointless right then. There was a deep gash on her upper arm that needed to be cleaned pretty badly, but I was sure it had stopped bleeding. The blood just hadn't fully dried on her skin or shirt, and that was making one hell of a mess.

"Randy?" I heard Hayden say, and looked around at him like he'd lost his god d-mn mind. He was on his phone, though, which I hadn't even heard him get out. When I'd told him to call someone, I hadn't really known who he should or would call. I just had a feeling that 'Randy' wasn't it. "Katie's here. In London."

"Get me something to clean this with." I interrupted, turning back to Katie, who seemed to be stirring some.

"She's, uh... Just get here as soon as you can." Hayden didn't sound scared, he sounded pissed out of his mind. And when he was like that, you just didn't ask questions.


End file.
